At this time of Raiders' fever (on Saturday night, the bad and mean GreenMachine is pitted against the Melbourne Storm in the grand-final qualifier), Stuart Anderson has some claim to being the most feverish Raiders' fan of all.
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When he attends Saturday's match at Melbourne's AAMI Park, it will be the 28th time this season he has been there in the flesh to support the Raiders. He has been to every home game and also (and this is where his true feverishness shines forth) to every away game.
The extreme fandom shown by his footy travels may make the 25-year-old Bonner man sound a little fanatical. But he seemed composed during our interview at the ANU's computer science building where he works for the CSIRO's Data61 as a research software engineer.
"It's the first time I've done it [attended every game] but I decided this year I was going to try to go to every game, home and away. I missed a few home games last season and I thought I'd try to make up for it. So I went to a trial game ahead of this season, at Orange, and I thought to myself 'The team is looking really exciting. This is probably going to be a decent year. I'm going to try to get to every game.
"I love the Raiders. I love watching rugby league, and there's just something about live games you just don't get on TV and this year it's just worked out for me. I though that while I'm with no kids and no mortgage I'd better do it now!"
Travel broadens the mind and he'd never even heard of New Plymouth (it is a petite city on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island) until he found that the Warriors, though Auckland-based, were playing the Raiders at that provincial venue. He needed a five-hour drive to get there.
Of course, Raiders' fans dressed in shriekingly green paraphernalia do stand out in an alien crowd.
"I usually wear my beanie with the Viking horns and I deck out with scarves and other paraphernalia, and I usually carry a flag. So people [opposing fans] do pick you out. You get a few bits of abuse hurled your way on occasions. But it's all part of the fun."
One of his best, most memorable away visits this season was to Sydney's Belmore Oval, home of the Bulldogs and always a cauldron.
"It's a famous old suburban ground. It was packed-out and a really great atmosphere and that's been where I've copped the most abuse this season. It was a very hostile atmosphere."
One of the (only just) printable things Belmore ruffians shrieked at him was "Go home you dickhead!"
"But I never mind that [from home ground fans] and I give it back to them when I'm walking out of the ground as a winner, which I have been a lot this year!"
All of Canberra will be hoping that Anderson, who of course will be in Melbourne on Saturday bedecked in his horned beanie, leaves AAMI Park as a grinning winner.
